New Beds for passive cooling.

We decided to put in a new bed to shade the west side of the house. We will be planting pole beans and gourds in this bed and training them to climb on ropes or trellises. Hopefully this will help block the sun and reduce the outside temperature of the house and reduce our electricity bill. The temperature now is 104 in the shaded spots and 125 in the sunny spots at 4:00 in the afternoon.

We used some blocks we had laying around for the border. The grass was dug up and left in the bed for organic matter. In the picture you can see that we have added at layer of cottonseed meal; it will also get some rabbit manure and a healthy dose of compost tea before we plant.